The inmate, Leroy Dean McGill, was executed for the 2002 murder of Charles Perez, who died after McGill doused him and his girlfriend, Nova Banta, with gasoline and set them on fire inside a Phoenix apartment. Prosecutors said McGill, who had been using methamphetamine and had not slept for several days, threw gasoline on them while they sat on a couch before igniting them. His girlfriend, Nova Banta, survived despite suffering third-degree burns over three-quarters of her body.
by JESSICA A. BOTELHO | The National News DeskFILE - This undated photo provided by Arizona Department of Corrections, Rehabilitation and Reentry shows prisoner Leroy McGill, who is scheduled to be executed on May 20, 2026, in the 2002 killing of Charles Perez .
An Arizona death row inmate convicted of setting a man on fire during a 2002 attack was executed on Wednesday, marking the state's first execution of the year. Leroy Dean McGill, 63, was pronounced dead at 10:26 a.m. PDT at the Arizona State Prison Complex in Florence after receiving a lethal injection of pentobarbital.
FILE - This undated photo provided by Arizona Department of Corrections, Rehabilitation and Reentry shows prisoner Leroy McGill, who is scheduled to be executed on May 20, 2026, in the 2002 killing of Charles Perez . "I just want to thank everyone for being so accommodating and nice," McGill said before he died, according to John Barcello, who is the deputy director of the Arizona Department of Corrections, Rehabilitation and Reentry.
McGill was sentenced to death for the murder of Charles Perez, who died after McGill doused him and his girlfriend, Nova Banta, with gasoline and set them on fire inside a Phoenix apartment. Authorities said the deadly attack happened on July 13, 2002, after Perez and Banta accused McGill of stealing a gun from the apartment.
Prosecutors said McGill, who had been using methamphetamine and had not slept for several days, threw gasoline on them while they sat on a couch before igniting them. Banta survived despite suffering third-degree burns over three-quarters of her body. Perez later died at a hospital, prosecutors said. McGill was convicted of first-degree murder, attempted murder, arson, and endangerment in 2004.
Jurors deliberated for less than an hour before returning guilty verdicts and later imposed the death penalty. In the years leading up to the execution, McGill’s attorneys argued he suffered severe childhood abuse and had mental impairments that should spare him from execution. Courts ultimately rejected those appeals, and McGill waived his right to seek clemency.
"After more than two decades, justice was finally served for Charles Perez and the woman who survived this horrific attack. What Leroy McGill did -- pouring gasoline on the victims and setting them on fire -- was among the cruelest acts imaginable," Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell said in "My thoughts are with the family of Charles Perez and the survivor, who has lived with the physical and emotional scars of that night for nearly 24 years.
May this bring them some measure of peace," Mitchell added. McGill became the 12th person executed in the U.S. this year. Arizona now has more than 100 inmates remaining on death row. A man from York County has been charged by Pennsylvania State Police after he left a "threatening voicemail" to the office of a state representative.
An Arizona death row inmate convicted of setting a man on fire during a 2002 attack was executed on Wednesday. A new report from The Jed Foundation examines the mental health challenges facing boys and young men.
An Ephrata neighborhood said they've been left shaken after a 4-year-old child was airlifted to the hospital following a fall from a fourth-story apartment windhree people are dead and more than a dozen first responders were quarantined and being treated Wednesday for exposure to an unidentified substance.
Death Row Inmate Conviction Murder Torture Arizona Florence David Paulsen Colorado River Correctional Facility Administration Of Pentobarbital Lethal Injection
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